This is an excellent reminder that the Church is not a media brand, and the pope is not its CEO. But it’s more than that. Hyperpapalism isn’t just a distortion of ecclesiology, it’s a distortion of incarnation. We begin to think grace descends through press conferences, that holiness can be tracked in policy shifts, that renewal must be managerial before it can be mystical.
But God didn’t wait for good governance to redeem the world. He came into a world where Caesar ruled and Herod schemed, and He changed it not by issuing decrees but by inhabiting flesh. If Christ chose to sanctify the world through a body, not through a bureaucracy, then the way forward for the Church is not to scrutinize Rome’s gestures like omens, but to tend to the places where Christ is still taking on flesh… the altar, the neighbor, the wound, the word whispered in prayer.
The danger of hyperpapalism is not just that it exhausts us, but that it subtly trains us to look for transcendence in abstraction rather than in the present moment. And the enemy is pleased to have us watch the sky for signs while God passes by in the face we’re too distracted to see.
Pray for the pope, yes, but let’s remember: the mystical Body is incarnate in the person beside us, not just the person in white.
Local news coverage is expensive, news organizations are taking the easy route, and so we get endless national and international news without being made wiser about the context. Neil Postman explained the trajectory of news as entertainment and titillation and the social result. So the popular misperception has grown that only national politics matters, but so has a sense of powerlessness and despair. Which dovetails with your wise analysis regarding the papacy and your spiritual guidance. I couldn’t agree with you more, Dr. K. Every word, 💯
A very good point. Isn't it strange? Local news should concern us 90% of the time, anything beyond that 10% of the time, but it's exactly the other way around. This goes together with the dissolution of intermediate bodies, so that, as in the political world it is the isolated citizen vis-a-vis the Leviathan of the federal government, so in the Church it is the isolated believer vis-a-vis the Monarch of the Vatican. We need to recover the rich diversity of "intermediate" life again. This also means subsidiarity, which is an aspect of synodality (rightly understood).
Yes, indeed. I think Tocqueville lauded the early US voluntary organizations and mediating structures, now thinned out.
The texture of life can again be thick and rich if we are traditional.
Also from Prime, the Lectio for Easter is, “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, seated at God’s right hand, and not the things of earth.” Not even the earth of Vatican City. This reminder accords with all your concrete suggestions for daily life and prayer and attention to our duties…that the real and immediate, here and now, lived liturgically and sacrificially IS the long view.
Sursum corda.
And as Mattei says—what a great passage—this is a time for hope. Thank you for encouraging us to expect God to do more than we can perceive. To have faith.
A great post, Dr K. I feel such a sense of relief with Pope Leo ~ he is calm, measured, and has a monk’s eyes, as if he actually has a prayer life. God help him and all of us!
A bumper roundup edition! The St John Fisher book looks incredible. I'm buying.
I share your thoughts on uncoupling from insidious technology. I've almost completely moved to substack for my self-curated media consumption, now use a brick phone, and eschew video for long-form. I give credit to my reversion to Cal Newport.
One very recent anecdote has confirmed my decision was correct. I happened to see a Traditional Catholic Youtube commentator, turn 180 on a number of things, and 'coincidentally' in his comments section, being lauded (courted) by some well known Catholic Conservative Commentators (Catholic Inc.). I was surprised at how this affected me: anger, outrage, a sense of betrayal. Nonetheless, I used the experience for good, and reflected on how fragile and tribal the YouTube space is. It's just click/shock/outrage bait: a hotbed of divisiveness. Good riddance.
I pray Leo XIV will be a Holy Pope. But as you said, do what you can do in our little daily lives, and leave the rest to God.
I'd finish by reflecting that it will naturally take time for many orthodox Catholics to trust in the incumbent again. Once bitten twice shy. But because we are orthodox Catholics, we do always trust in the Chair, and in time we will trust the man beyond cautious optimism. I pray that those who want to bend the Pope to their own will/ideology will instead buy a subscription to T&S and learn about the correct response. :-)
Eh. Sorry Dr. K but I've been hearing popes, and yes even including Francis a time or two, telling us we need to recover 'mystery' or some such thing in the Western liturgy since the days of JP2 - and then doing nothing, sometimes even less than that, to make it happen. Summorum Pontificum excepted of course though that did little to affect Novus Ordo land where 97% of Catholics live.
Anyways, color me unimpressed. I'll believe it when I see it.
Note that I didn't say he has acted on this sentiment yet. However, even to state the truth, in a way much clearer than anything Francis ever said, is a positive, a confirmation of what we already know to be true, but rarely hear from high up. It seems to me that each of the popes EXCEPT Francis has done particular things to advance the Eastern Churches and to permit greater access to Western tradition. Yes, breadcrumbs so far (except SP), but we're not at the end of the story.
You won't be surprised to hear that I'm not convinced much can be done to salvage the Novus Ordo.
Ok mea culpa. I just reread Desiderio desidaravi (ugh) and I had misremembered what Francis had written in there. He literally said that removing the sense of mystery from the liturgy did the liturgical 'reform' credit.
So maybe one can hope. Or maybe not. I guess I've just been burned by these guys so many times that I would infinitely prefer to see deeds than to hear words. He might be playing Richard Daley Chicago politics and throwing a bone to everybody to keep them happy and himself out of trouble. Or it might be that since American English is his native language he actually has listened to and understands the anger coming out of this country both at Francis and the generalized ice cold aloofness and tone deafness of the Vatican since forever regarding the most critical issues facing the Church and has chosen to take a different course. I hope the latter
I've come up with a shorter word for Dehyperpapalization: Catholic.
Aw, but I *like* long words - I'm a recovering academic!
This is an excellent reminder that the Church is not a media brand, and the pope is not its CEO. But it’s more than that. Hyperpapalism isn’t just a distortion of ecclesiology, it’s a distortion of incarnation. We begin to think grace descends through press conferences, that holiness can be tracked in policy shifts, that renewal must be managerial before it can be mystical.
But God didn’t wait for good governance to redeem the world. He came into a world where Caesar ruled and Herod schemed, and He changed it not by issuing decrees but by inhabiting flesh. If Christ chose to sanctify the world through a body, not through a bureaucracy, then the way forward for the Church is not to scrutinize Rome’s gestures like omens, but to tend to the places where Christ is still taking on flesh… the altar, the neighbor, the wound, the word whispered in prayer.
The danger of hyperpapalism is not just that it exhausts us, but that it subtly trains us to look for transcendence in abstraction rather than in the present moment. And the enemy is pleased to have us watch the sky for signs while God passes by in the face we’re too distracted to see.
Pray for the pope, yes, but let’s remember: the mystical Body is incarnate in the person beside us, not just the person in white.
I love this and couldn't agree more! Thank you a thousandfold for writing it.
"...descends through press conferences.."
that's the way it works in that *other kingdom.
Local news coverage is expensive, news organizations are taking the easy route, and so we get endless national and international news without being made wiser about the context. Neil Postman explained the trajectory of news as entertainment and titillation and the social result. So the popular misperception has grown that only national politics matters, but so has a sense of powerlessness and despair. Which dovetails with your wise analysis regarding the papacy and your spiritual guidance. I couldn’t agree with you more, Dr. K. Every word, 💯
A very good point. Isn't it strange? Local news should concern us 90% of the time, anything beyond that 10% of the time, but it's exactly the other way around. This goes together with the dissolution of intermediate bodies, so that, as in the political world it is the isolated citizen vis-a-vis the Leviathan of the federal government, so in the Church it is the isolated believer vis-a-vis the Monarch of the Vatican. We need to recover the rich diversity of "intermediate" life again. This also means subsidiarity, which is an aspect of synodality (rightly understood).
Yes, indeed. I think Tocqueville lauded the early US voluntary organizations and mediating structures, now thinned out.
The texture of life can again be thick and rich if we are traditional.
Also from Prime, the Lectio for Easter is, “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, seated at God’s right hand, and not the things of earth.” Not even the earth of Vatican City. This reminder accords with all your concrete suggestions for daily life and prayer and attention to our duties…that the real and immediate, here and now, lived liturgically and sacrificially IS the long view.
Sursum corda.
And as Mattei says—what a great passage—this is a time for hope. Thank you for encouraging us to expect God to do more than we can perceive. To have faith.
Christ is risen. Christ is King.
A great post, Dr K. I feel such a sense of relief with Pope Leo ~ he is calm, measured, and has a monk’s eyes, as if he actually has a prayer life. God help him and all of us!
Would double-like if I could.
A bumper roundup edition! The St John Fisher book looks incredible. I'm buying.
I share your thoughts on uncoupling from insidious technology. I've almost completely moved to substack for my self-curated media consumption, now use a brick phone, and eschew video for long-form. I give credit to my reversion to Cal Newport.
One very recent anecdote has confirmed my decision was correct. I happened to see a Traditional Catholic Youtube commentator, turn 180 on a number of things, and 'coincidentally' in his comments section, being lauded (courted) by some well known Catholic Conservative Commentators (Catholic Inc.). I was surprised at how this affected me: anger, outrage, a sense of betrayal. Nonetheless, I used the experience for good, and reflected on how fragile and tribal the YouTube space is. It's just click/shock/outrage bait: a hotbed of divisiveness. Good riddance.
I pray Leo XIV will be a Holy Pope. But as you said, do what you can do in our little daily lives, and leave the rest to God.
I'd finish by reflecting that it will naturally take time for many orthodox Catholics to trust in the incumbent again. Once bitten twice shy. But because we are orthodox Catholics, we do always trust in the Chair, and in time we will trust the man beyond cautious optimism. I pray that those who want to bend the Pope to their own will/ideology will instead buy a subscription to T&S and learn about the correct response. :-)
Eh. Sorry Dr. K but I've been hearing popes, and yes even including Francis a time or two, telling us we need to recover 'mystery' or some such thing in the Western liturgy since the days of JP2 - and then doing nothing, sometimes even less than that, to make it happen. Summorum Pontificum excepted of course though that did little to affect Novus Ordo land where 97% of Catholics live.
Anyways, color me unimpressed. I'll believe it when I see it.
Note that I didn't say he has acted on this sentiment yet. However, even to state the truth, in a way much clearer than anything Francis ever said, is a positive, a confirmation of what we already know to be true, but rarely hear from high up. It seems to me that each of the popes EXCEPT Francis has done particular things to advance the Eastern Churches and to permit greater access to Western tradition. Yes, breadcrumbs so far (except SP), but we're not at the end of the story.
You won't be surprised to hear that I'm not convinced much can be done to salvage the Novus Ordo.
Ok mea culpa. I just reread Desiderio desidaravi (ugh) and I had misremembered what Francis had written in there. He literally said that removing the sense of mystery from the liturgy did the liturgical 'reform' credit.
So maybe one can hope. Or maybe not. I guess I've just been burned by these guys so many times that I would infinitely prefer to see deeds than to hear words. He might be playing Richard Daley Chicago politics and throwing a bone to everybody to keep them happy and himself out of trouble. Or it might be that since American English is his native language he actually has listened to and understands the anger coming out of this country both at Francis and the generalized ice cold aloofness and tone deafness of the Vatican since forever regarding the most critical issues facing the Church and has chosen to take a different course. I hope the latter
My prayers for Church leadership are for me to be patient and clear-eyed.